Prospects for Peace

This piece also appears at TPM Cafe

On day 10 of the Gaza crisis I would like to weigh in with some thoughts on (1) what needs to happen next and what a more rational, more thoughtful pro-Israel position might look like, (2) on this human tragedy that is unfolding and how to create incentives to sustain a future ceasefire (3) on the bigger picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and some of the nonsense propaganda on “what would you expect America to do under these circumstances,” (4) how this is an American problem too in an already dangerously destabilized region that so impacts American security and finally (5) how congress needs to give political space to the incoming Obama administration to get to work on a very challenging Middle East, and not to box Obama in. 

1. WHAT NEXT AND WHAT'S PRO-ISRAEL: There is a heated debate within the pro-Israel community regarding the Gaza crisis, and I am very much in agreement with the position of J Street, (and others such as APN, Brit Tzedek, and IPF) representing I think a mainstream, responsible line. Here, for me, is a key point – US political posturing should not deny Israel or the Palestinians an exit strategy. 

Israel's leaders are for now rejecting a ceasefire.  That is to be expected.  Of course the Israeli leadership has to sound tough and uncompromising in their positions, that's part of the dynamic of who has a winning narrative and is of course part of the domestic politics (especially with elections coming up on February 10^th).  This should not be confused with a cold look at the respective interests at play – and for Israel getting bogged down in Gaza is a distinctly bad idea. 

The way this is set up politically means that Israel has to have a ceasefire imposed on it – this seems to be what Defense minister Barak is looking for and he favored the French proposal for a truce last week even before the ground invasion began.   The speculation among Israeli commentators is that an international demand for a ceasefire is pretty much the only exit strategy Israel has up its sleeve, even suggesting that Israel may intentionally exacerbate a humanitarian crisis in order to force the international community to act (that was the expert analysis on Israeli channel 10 TV last night).  Things are made even more complicated by the fact two of the ministers leading the country are competing in the elections next month – MoD Barak and FM Livni.  So it's not just Israel that needs a winning narrative – each minister needs his/her own particular winning narrative.  So an outside push is a prerequisite for ending this. 

In this respect it is reminiscent of the dynamic in Lebanon in 2006 where it took 33 days to get a U.N. Security Council Resolution (1701) and an end to violence. This time on day 10, things may, in some short-term respects, look good for Israel but this is unlikely to be the case by day 33.  An America that again sits on the sidelines and does not help work towards an urgent ceasefire is doing Israel no favors. 

 So what needs to happen next? The elements for a ceasefire are known - ending the rocket strikes, violence and military incursions in a sustainable way, ending the blockade on Gaza, preventing new arms from entering Gaza and international monitoring for these arrangements/border crossings -- now they need to be stitched together.  For that to work, Hamas needs to be a party to the ceasefire arrangements.  The alternatives – ongoing Israeli occupation, Israel handing control to the PA or international/Arab forces are either highly unrealistic or highly undesirable and dangerous.  However, if Israel does get tempted to go for regime change and removing Hamas then these become the only options that are left, and Gaza will descend into the kind of lawless chaos which is a gift to al-Qaeda style Salafists and will create a Somalia on its doorstep. 

2.  THE HUMAN TRAGEDY: There is a dire humanitarian situation unfolding here – irrespective of one's views on Israel or Hamas, this needs to be addressed. Not even the bare minimum of supplies are able to enter Gaza.  In addition to the over 500 deaths, one quarter of whom were women and children and many more civilians including police, hospitals are running on emergency power, water and sewage systems are collapsing and basic necessities are unavailable (see the UN OCHA report and ICRC for more information). 

And in this respect Gaza is not Southern Lebanon, there is no hinterland for the civilian population to escape to as there was with Lebanon.  Gazan borders with Egypt and Israel are totally blocked and that only leaves the sea – where there is an Israeli naval blockade. 

The blockade on Gaza is nothing new and this is crucial in also understanding the political situation.  Since Israel's departure in 2005 and even during the 6 month ceasefire a closure was also imposed on Gaza (sometimes more harsh, sometimes less so).  Collective punishment is never good from a moral perspective but it also makes no political sense – it meant that no incentives were created among the Palestinian public to support a continued ceasefire and to act as a pressure against those firing rockets.  Hamas is attentive to public pressure and this basic equation was ignored. From the Israeli side, after 6 months in which there was no fatality, and life began to return to normal for the southern communities, there is now rocket fire extending further than ever and schools are closed. 

3.  REMEMBER THE BIGGER PICTURE - this crisis has to be firmly understood in the context of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yes the conflict has been exploited on many sides and certainly by Iran and other hardliners in the region but if the unaddressed Palestinian grievance did not exist then it would not be there to exploit (also by Hamas although my reading of Hamas is that first and foremost they have a nationalist Palestinian agenda that would be sufficiently satisfied were there to be real de-occupation for them to end armed resistance). 

The peace process and certainly in its new Annapolis incarnation has failed to deliver and there is an urgent need for a rethink.  Destruction on this scale is hard to describe as an opportunity but it is a reminder that a sham peace process -- that delivers more settlements and checkpoints instead of independence for Palestinians and security for Israelis – cannot produce stability. 

There is also some appalling misinformation being spread – one frequently hears the claim that Israel left Gaza in 2005 in order to build peace but all it received was terror.  I appreciate the Gaza evacuation of 2005 and how difficult it was  and I in no way condone the launching of rockets against civilian targets from Gaza but the unilateral nature of the Gaza withdrawal was a mistake (and I said it at the time) and I don't appreciate this rewriting of history.  Israel at the time did not evacuate Gaza as part of the peace process. Then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon explicitly said that Israel "will stay in the territories that will remain."  His most senior adviser who was in charge of the disengagement, Dov Weisglass, was even more explicit stating that the plan would freeze the peace process and "prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state…it supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians." This was brought out by the fact that, as mentioned, Gaza was immediately placed under closure – and those who blame the Gazans for not developing their economy post-occupation should be reminded of that. 

We also frequently hear the claim – what would America do if it came under rocket fire from Canada or Mexico? Again, there can be no justification for rockets targeting Israel's south, and of course America would respond if it were under fire from Canada or Mexico. But let's at least complete the analogy and here is that bigger picture. Gaza constitutes under 6 percent of the '67 territory in which a Palestinian state is supposed to be created (Gaza, West Bank, Palestinian East Jerusalem), about 94 percent remains under occupation so under our scenario 94 percent of Canada or Mexico would have remained under a 40 plus year American occupation with settlements and roadblocks, and with the "liberated" 6 percent still under siege.  Now I like the Mexicans and Canadians as much as the next person but is it totally inconceivable that under such circumstances some of them would have formed hardline armed groups that would even become very popular and use that 6 percent of territory to launch attacks against America? I will leave it to your imagination.  

4.  THIS IS ALSO AN AMERICAN PROBLEM.  There is growing anger directed at the US and potential blowback for the US if it continues to be seen as facilitating the ongoing violence and preventing a ceasefire. There has been an outbreak of popular outrage in the region and well beyond – it is not only being driven by pro-Iranian or pro-Muslim Brotherhood Islamist forces, there are also popular reformist, nationalist, and secular forces involved.  And while it primarily targets Israel, there is also often a focus on the impotence of America's allied Arab regimes and American complicity.  In Indonesia, the most populous Muslim state, the demonstration in Jakarta was outside the American embassy and this has been repeated elsewhere including Lebanon and Malaysia.

It's worth noting that where American troops are stationed and in harms way – Afghanistan and Iraq – there has also been significant popular hostility, including a fatwa from Grand Ayatollah Sistani the preeminent Shia cleric in Iraq calling for action in support for Palestinians.  

To be clear, this is not the America-Israel relationship per se that is the problem (it is for some, but for most this is in the background not the foreground most of the time).   The issue is the outstanding Palestinian grievance (and again for most it’s the basics –statehood, de-occupation, not the 1948 file and the very fact of Israel’s existence). It all explodes in times of crisis like this when America is perceived to be totally indifferent to Palestinian humanity and suffering and inactive or excessively imbalanced in its pursuit of a solution.  This is further destabilizing an already radically destabilized Middle East. 

At the very least, American politicians need to find a language that at the same time is both staunchly supportive of Israel and its security but also able to convincingly empathize with the Palestinians and their predicament. And once the U.S. finds a vocabulary - then it needs to find a policy that can actually start getting a resolution of this crisis - and not the feckless Annapolis effort (hints: encourage Palestinian internal reconciliation, engage with a broader range of regional actors and make this part of a new regional security architecture, focus on de-occupation as a priority, set down American ideas for a solution and actively pursue them, address Israeli security concerns via international forces being temporarily stationed in the new Palestinian state, use the Arab Peace Initiative to help get Israeli and Palestinian buy-in and benefits for both ...etc)  

5.  GIVE THE NEW GUY A CHANCE. The Democrat-led congress should not be boxing in the new Obama administration to a set of failed Middle East policies even before it takes office.  If this crisis is still ongoing on January 20^th there will be a huge burden of expectations worldwide on the incoming administration to intervene.  President-elect Obama's credibility moving forward in the Middle East and in his efforts to restabilize the region will be greatly affected by how this crisis in handled. It touches on the iconic litmus test issue for the region - the Palestinians.  Obama's studied silence so far is probably a blessing - he cannot yet make policy, there is no good ceasefire proposal to support and there is pressure on him to spout platitudes which will undermine his future capacity to mediate.

On the bright side by January 20^th it is very likely that all sides will want an exit strategy and chances for a diplomatic resolution will be greater.  Then congress will have to give the new administration space to pursue a realistic ceasefire and new set of arrangements.  Many of the statements in congress which mimic the existing Bush strategy are narrowing the room for maneuver of the new president. 

If as one hopes this is resolved by January 20^th the Obama administration will have to be picking up the pieces and restoring America's credibility in that region. And again this will require more than the pavlovian and irresponsible pro-Israel rants that are being heard from many quarters today.  It will require a more sophisticated and thoughtful approach to what is pro-Israel and to securing Israel's future in the region, as part of an articulation of American interests and a very different American approach.  Everyone interested in re-stabilizing a region that is so important to American security and to restoring American leadership should be working to create maximum political space in which the new administration can act – not the opposite. Read members of Congress Donna Edwards, Lois Capps, Joe Sestak, Earl Blumenauer, Betty McCollum, and Keith Ellison for examples of how to be thoughtful on the issue and helpful to an Obama Administration that needs to calm the region as it seeks to withdraw from Iraq, reduce the appeal of Salafi jihadism and restore American standing.

And one final thought at the end of a long post – this is so terrible for Israel, the anger it is generating in Palestinians and beyond for future generations, the immorality of this humanitarian crisis, the disaster of potentially getting stuck in Gaza and the fact that this will deliver neither peace nor security for a country that I adopted as my home and that I would dearly love to see enjoy better, much better days. 

Want to do something?  Sign the J Street petition and join J Street. 

This is a piece co-written with my colleague Amjad Atallah, who is joining me to co-direct the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation. This also appears on the Guardian online.  

As of Tuesday evening, Israel's air assault on the Gaza Strip, an area only twice the size of Washington DC, and the world's most densely populated territory, counted at least 380 dead Palestinians, including scores of children and over 800 wounded, four dead Israelis, and one dead Egyptian soldier. Demonstrations against Israel and the United States took place in Turkey, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Bahrain, Lebanon, the Israeli occupied West Bank, throughout Europe - and even in Israel itself. Demonstrators targeted Arab governments too, notably America's ally, Egypt. And this is only the beginning of the latest Israeli-Arab war.

It will get worse – whenever it wasn't getting better it has always gotten worse. 

For anyone to believe that this time everything will be different, they would have to be incredibly optimistic or foolish. The most likely script will be a variation on previous wars. Israel will "punish" the Arabs in Gaza as they have never been hurt before. Hamas will find ways to attack Israelis, either through rockets or through attacks inside Israel. If there is a ground war, many more civilians will die.

Once some days have passed and each side takes stock, they will begin looking for an exit strategy. If the Bush administration follows past protocol, it will encourage Israel to prolong the war in the hopes of achieving a "knock-out" blow.

At the end, a shaky return to the status quo will take place, each side will declare victory, and everyone will have lost. Israel will still have a Hamas-run Gaza Strip as its neighbour, and a more angry one to boot, Palestinians will have hundreds - if not thousands - of new graves, and hatred of the US throughout the Arab and Muslims worlds will have received a fresh boost.

So why not change the script?

The US should step in now and help negotiate a ceasefire that can achieve those goals that are consistent with American, Israeli, and Palestinian security interests, ending the violence and lifting the siege on Gaza. A third-party monitoring mechanism should be established that can work with Israel and Hamas to ensure compliance with the agreement. There is a precedent for this - in 1996, following the disastrous Israeli "Grapes of Wrath" operation in Lebanon, a monitoring group consisting of the US, Syria, Israel, Lebanon and France was instituted.

America's allies have a profound role to play right now. They will need to create back-channel opportunities for serious discussions between Israel and Hamas over the terms of a new ceasefire. Those terms will have to include reliable security for Israel and for Palestinians and a full opening of the Gaza Strip to humanitarian aid and economic assistance and development through both Israel and Egypt. That opening will have to come in part with Israel's assistance, but also with Egypt's. The institutionalisation of the "tunnel economy" between Egypt and the Gaza Strip needs to be normalised above the ground and Gaza's civilians need to be allowed to travel for the first time.

A monitoring and verification mechanism will need to be created to ensure that each side fulfills its commitments with modalities to handle the inevitable problems that will arise. It will be necessary to place some monitors inside Gaza and on the border crossings with Israel and Egypt.

The Bush administration can and should be part of this effort. It may be leaving the world a much worse place than when it started, but it can at least try to put out one fire in its last weeks in office. If not, others will have to fill that vacuum – something that has happened often in the last eight years and that we are seeing already in this latest crisis, with the beginnings of Turkish mediation and French truce efforts.

Finally, it must be made clear that this is a stop-gap measure, a prelude to a broader stabilisation effort that can deliver something at least approximating peace. And for that, America is indispensable. The place to start is not by injecting new life into the flawed Annapolis peace process. That effort, focused exclusively on the West Bank and on reaching a deal on paper, absent implementation mechanisms, inclusivity and a regional component, has just been exposed in all its redundancy.

In re-thinking its approach, America will have to work more closely with its allies, and develop a meaningful division of labour. For instance, Turkey, Arab states like Qatar, and the Europeans should be allowed to take the lead in working to get Hamas' formal acceptance of the Arab League initiative and negotiating a power-sharing agreement between the Fatah faction in control in the West Bank and the Hamas leadership in Gaza. The US has vetoed this approach in the past. Those allies will also have to be more forceful in advocating a different approach to the US and be willing to carry the extra burden of new responsibilities.

A key US national security interest goal for the incoming Obama administration is ending the state of hostility between Israel and her Arab neighbors and ensuring the creation of a Palestinian state that is part of a new regional security structure. This will help promote a more stable regional environment for withdrawal from Iraq, dramatically improve the US negotiating position with Iran, ensure Israel's prosperity and security, and win allies in the battle against Salafist extremism. It is hard to overstate the importance of creating a new regional context in the Middle East. The narrow and self-serving interests of particular Israeli and Palestinian governments (and the Palestinians currently have two) have to be subsumed to that overriding necessity.

But figuring out how to get there will take a major rethink. Obama's silence right now on Gaza, as opposed to his comments on the terrorist attacks in Mumbai or on the financial crisis, may not be such a bad thing if the alternative is an endorsement of dead-end conflict. Nuancing the failed policies the US has pursued in the Middle East over the last eight years is not enough, it will not give us very different results. Coming up with a new policy and tactics should be something that exercises the Obama administration starting from day one.

In the meantime, the United States must be seen to be a source for conflict resolution not escalation – starting now with Gaza.

For many people, what has happened today between Gaza and Israel may have all too familiar a ring to it – Israel warns and then retaliates to an alleged or real Palestinian escalation of violence, there is Arab condemnation and international exasperation, eventually things de-escalate but according to Israel’s timetable as the U.S. prevents  effective early international mediation, and we’re back to where we started - with the addition of more blood and death (many innocent, some less so), more wounded and more shattered families.

Most of those involved, often including Israel, tend to regret things not coming to a halt sooner. The Israel Defense Forces with their modern weaponry try to pinpoint  targets but invariably, predictably, and painfully there are plenty of “misses”; the Palestinians – well their weaponry is by definition more crude, they use what is available and the results are correspondingly messy and indiscriminate. Bottom line – Arabs and Jews are killing each other – so what’s new? And why on earth would America want to be involved?

Here’s the bad news folks – America is involved, up to its eyeballs actually. Today, after Israeli air-strikes that killed over 200 Palestinians in Gaza, the Middle East is again seething with rage. Recruiters to the most radical of causes are again cashing in. If Osama Bin Laden is indeed a cave-dweller these days then U.S. intel should be listening out for a booming echo of laughter. Demonstrations across the Arab world and contributors to the ever-proliferating Arabic language news media and blogosphere hold the U.S., and not just Israel, responsible for what happened today (and that is a position taken, for good reasons, by sensible folk, not hard-liners). America’s allies in the region are again running for cover. America’s standing, its interests and security are all deeply affected. The U.S.-Israel relationship per se is not to blame (that is something I support), the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict is – and thankfully we can do something about that.

Why did today’s events occur? The list of causes is a long one and of course depends who you are asking. Here are five of the most salient factors as I see them:

(1) Never forget the basics – the core issue is still an unresolved conflict about ending an occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state – everything has to start from here to be serious (this is true also for Hamas who continue to heavily hint that they will accept the 1967 borders).

(2) The immediate backdrop begins with the Israeli disengagement from Gaza of summer 2005, ostensibly a good move, except one that left more issues open than it resolved. It was a unilateral initiative, so there was no coordinating the ‘what happens next’ with the Palestinians. Gaza was closed off to the world, the West Bank remained under occupation and what had the potential to be a constructive move towards peace became a source of new tensions – something many of us pointed out at the time (supporting withdrawal from Gaza, opposing how it was done).

(3) U.S., Israeli and international policy towards Hamas has greatly exacerbated the situation. Hamas participated in and won democratic elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006. Rather than test the Hamas capacity to govern responsibly and nurture Hamas further into the political arena and away from armed struggle, the U.S.-led international response was to hermetically seal-off Hamas, besiege Gaza, work to undemocratically overthrow the Hamas government and thereby allow Hamas to credibly claim that a hypocritical standard was being applied to the American democracy agenda.

American, Israeli and Quartet policy towards Hamas has been a litany of largely unforced errors and missed opportunities. Hamas poses a serious policy challenge and direct early U.S. or Israeli engagement let alone financial support was certainly not the way forward, but in testing Hamas, a  division of labor within the Quartet would have made sense (European and U.N. engagement, for instance, should have been encouraged, not the opposite). Every wrong turn was taken – Hamas were seen through the GWOT prism not as a liberation struggle, when the Saudi’s delivered a Palestinian National Unity Government in March 2007 the U.S. worked to unravel it, Palestinian reconciliation is still vetoed which encourages the least credible trends within Fatah, and unbelievably Egypt is given an exclusive mediation role with Hamas (Egypt naturally sees the Hamas issue first through its own domestic prism of concern at the growth of the Muslim Brothers, progress is often held hostage to ongoing Hamas-Egypt squabbles).

(4) Failure to build on the ceasefire. Israel is of course duty bound to defend and protect its citizens, so as the intensity of rocket fire in 2007-8 increased, Israel stepped up its actions against Gaza. But there was never much Israeli military or government enthusiasm for a full-scale conflict or ground invasion and eventually a practical working solution was found when both sides agreed to a six-month ceasefire on June 19th 2008. Neither side loved it. Both drew just enough benefit to keep going. That equation though was always delicately balanced. For the communities of southern Israel which bore the brunt of the rocket attacks, notably Sderot, the ceasefire led to a dramatic improvement in daily life, and there were no Israeli fatalities during the entire period (only today, following the IDF strikes did a rocket hit the town of Netivot and kill one Israeli). Israel was though concerned about a Hamas arms build up and the entrenching of Hamas rule (which its policies have actually encouraged). For Gaza the calm meant less of an ongoing military threat but supplies of basic necessities into Gaza were kept to a minimum – just above starvation and humanitarian crisis levels – an ongoing provocation to Hamas and collective punishment for Gazans. The ceasefire needed to be solidified, nurtured, taken to the next level. None of this was done – the Quartet was busy with the deeply flawed Annapolis effort.

(5) A disaster was waiting to happen, and no-one was doing much about it. There was of course a date for the end of the ceasefire – December 19th. As that date approached both sides sought to improve their relative positions, to test some new rules of the game. Israel conducted a military operation on November  4th (yes, you had other things on your mind that day), apparently to destroy a tunnel from which an attack on Israel could be launched, Hamas responded with rocket-fire on southern Israeli towns. That initiated a period of intense Israeli-Hamas dialogue, albeit an untraditional one, largely conducted via mutual military jabs, occasional public messaging and back-channels. Again though the main reliance was on Egypt – by now in an intense struggle of its own with Hamas. When Hamas pushed the envelop with over 60 rockets on a single day  (December 24th), albeit causing no serious injuries and mostly landing in open fields (probably by design), Israel decided that it was time for an escalation. That happened today – on a massive scale - with an unprecedented death toll.

Israel clearly felt it was time to make a point, there was pressure (often self-generated) to act, and don’t forget that Israel is in an election campaign (the vote is on Feb 10th). Hamas too had scores to settle – not only with Israel, but it was also time to pressure Egypt, Fatah, and Arab actors who had done little to address the blockade of Gaza.

So here we are, in a dangerous escalatory cycle that is already sweeping the region, with scores of Palestinian dead, horrific images, a highly-charged blame-game and no obvious exit-strategy. Both Israel and Hamas are looking to emerge with a better deal than what previously prevailed – both are preparing their publics to take harsh hits over the coming days, weeks or even longer, and over 200 families in Gaza and one family in Israel already know what that means, first-hand.

So, what needs to happen next?

Sadly it is too late for preventive action but there is an urgent need for a de-escalation that can lead to a new ceasefire – and that will not be easy.

Useful lessons can be drawn from some very recent, and ugly, Middle East history – though it seems that to its dying day the Bush Administration is refusing to learn (today the White House called on Israel only to avoid civilian casualties as it attacks Hamas – not to cease the strikes, Secretary Rice was more measured).

In the summer of 2006 an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah led to a Lebanon war whose echoes still reverberate around the region. There were well over one thousand civilian casualties (1,035 Lebanese according to AP, 43 Israelis), thousands more injured, and other fatalities including the Israeli government which never recovered its poise, what little American credibility remained in the region (Secretary Rice was literally forced to return to Foggy Bottom as allied Arab capitals were too embarrassed to receive her) and much Lebanese infrastructure. That time it took 33 days for diplomacy to move and for a U.N. Security Council Resolution (1701) to deliver an end to fighting. The U.S. actively blocked diplomacy, Rice famously called this conflict “the birth pangs of a new Middle East” – it was no such thing, and the Middle East itself did not know whether to laugh or cry (the latter prevailed).

Just as in 2006, Israel needs the international community to be its exit strategy - and there is no time to waste. Even what appears as a short-term Israeli success is likely to prove self-defeating over a longer time horizon and that effect will intensify as the fighting continues. Over time, immense pressure will also grow on the PA in Ramallah, on Jordan, Egypt and others to act and their governments will be increasingly uneasy. Demonstrations across the West Bank are calling for a halt to all Israeli-Palestinian talks and for Palestinian unity.

If the U.S. is indifferent or still under the neocon ideological spell then Europe, the rest of the Quartet, Arab States and other internationals must act – with a variety of players using leverage with Israel and Hamas to de-escalate. Escalation poses dangers at a humanitarian and regional-political level. International leaders should head to the region before the new year, even if the warring parties discourage it, and for some of them Gaza must be on the itinerary, the boycott (anyway unwise) is a secondary matter now. High-level visits in themselves can create a de-escalatory dynamic.

Both sides will want to land the final big punch and both will need a dignified narrative for home consumption – any ceasefire deal will have to take this into account (and this during an Israeli election campaign, with violence usually helping the right, and the centrist government desperate for an image make-over after that Lebanon 2006 debacle).
 
The obvious ingredients will have to be creatively re-configured for this to be possible, including ending rocket fire at Israel and removing the blockade on Gaza. New ingredients may also be necessary and while extending the ceasefire to the West Bank is (unfortunately) probably out of the question, it might be possible this time to establish a monitoring mechanism for the ceasefire. Such a mechanism could serve both sides’ interests (Israel gets a more solid guarantee, Hamas gets more recognition). There is a precedent for this – after the April 1996 Israel-Hezbollah conflict a formal Ceasefire Understanding was reached that included the establishment of a Monitoring Group consisting of the U.S., France, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel (with Syria basically acting as guarantor for Hezbollah). That mechanism proved useful and met with constructive IDF cooperation – something similar might be needed now.

In addition efforts need to be revived for achieving Palestinian national reconciliation (which itself could ease the management of the Gaza situation) and for allowing Gaza greater access to the outside world through Egypt via the Rafah border crossing.

But there is a bigger picture – and it is staring at the incoming Obama administration. Today’s events should be ‘exhibit A’ in why the next U.S. Government cannot leave the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to fester or try to ‘manage’ it – as long as it remains unresolved, it has a nasty habit of forcing itself onto the agenda. That can happen on terms dictated to the U.S. by the region (bad) or the U.S. can seek to set its own terms (far preferable). The new administration needs to embark upon a course of forceful regional diplomacy that breaks fundamentally from past efforts. A consensus of sorts is emerging in the U.S. foreign policy establishment that this conflict needs to be resolved – evidenced in the findings of a recent Brookings/Council of Foreign Relations Report or the powerful statements coming from elder statesmen like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, themselves building on the findings of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. It will require tenacity and bold ideas – in framing the solution, bringing in previously excluded actors, creating mechanisms to implement a deal (such as international forces) and utilizing the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative – but the alternative is far worse, its what we see today and it guarantees ongoing instability in a region of paramount importance to the United States.

This piece also appears in The Forward today.    

If the emerging Washington consensus is to be believed, then here is the Middle East peace conundrum waiting to greet the new Obama administration: Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more than ever a strategic priority for the United States, but it also seems more difficult to achieve now, perhaps even unattainable in the foreseeable future.

The transition of power always produces a proliferation of policy papers, reports and recommendations. This season virtually all converge around some variation of the following message: President Bush’s seven-year neglect of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking eviscerated the regional standing of the United States, and this unresolved conflict fuels anti-Americanism, weakens allies, emboldens foes and is a recruitment tool for extremists.

The trouble is that a deep skepticism prevails as to what can be done given the divisions and political dysfunction displayed on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides and the failure of the Annapolis effort. Serious and well-intentioned people in America and Israel are arguing that the best the incoming administration can do on the Israeli-Palestinian front is focus on conflict management, postpone pushing for a comprehensive resolution and go for an Israeli-Syrian deal instead.

But it would be a profound mistake to put on the back burner efforts to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough. Without addressing the Palestinian issue, it is extremely unlikely that the region can be re-stabilized, that American credibility can be revived or that Israel’s future can be secured. Nor is working to achieve a Palestinian-Israeli deal inconsistent with the goal of reaching an accord with Syria; regional issues are increasingly interconnected and a comprehensive approach (including American-Iranian diplomacy) makes most sense.

The challenge, then, is how to make an Israeli-Palestinian deal possible in the near term. In tackling this issue, it is essential to resist the temptation to lapse into familiar and failed approaches.

Focusing efforts on improving the Palestinian economy or security capacity, gradually building trust and confidence, while receiving updates on and encouraging the parties’ bilateral negotiations — all of this sounds reasonable and laudable. It certainly creates lots of diplomatic activity, announcements, visits and conferences. However, as we have learned from experience, this approach is not enough to yield meaningful and sustainable results. Condoleezza Rice, as secretary of state, visited Israel an astonishing 22 times (compared with eight visits to China and India combined) with precious little to show for it.

We live in a transparent world. It can do more harm than good when an American administration declares the Israeli-Palestinian issue to be a priority — and invests energy, effort and visibility — but the result on the ground is more insecurity, settlements and closures. When the United States appears incapable of delivering, friends and foes alike take notice. There is no such thing as an “A” for effort.

Israel, for its part, urgently needs to achieve permanent and recognized borders, reach a two-state solution and end the madness of ongoing settlements in the West Bank. A process without progress does not advance Israel’s interests.

So, is there a more promising alternative that better addresses American and Israeli needs (and the unconscionable predicament of the Palestinians) that has a realistic prospect of success? I think there is, but it requires bold, ambitious and new thinking, especially about the “when,” “who” and “how” of advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace.

First, the “when.” Delay, postponement and gradualism have ill-served the cause of peace. The conditions for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict do need to be created — but that can and should be a short-term project, not a perpetual pursuit.

As for the “who,” of course a resolution requires a threshold of Palestinian and Israeli capacity, but the idea that the sides need to do all the heavy-lifting and have hyper-charged peacemaking and implementation capacities is both unrealistic and holds back progress. Key and necessary ingredients for delivering peace and security can be substituted by the United States, the Quartet, Arab states, the European Union, NATO and others.

This is not to say that Israelis and Palestinians should be relegated to the roles of mere onlookers — sufficient local buy-in is essential. Israelis should be encouraged to acknowledge and address the stark choices and options that they face (occupation vs. democracy) and to build a consensus around the peace option. Palestinians need internal reconciliation and to build an inclusive national movement that can legitimately make national decisions and come to terms with Israel in the context of a dignified peace.

And finally there is the “how,” which really follows from the “who.” Israeli-Palestinian peace needs to be embedded in a new regional effort. That requires a comprehensive approach incorporating Syria and articulating a detailed plan for implementing the Arab peace initiative. Ultimately, a new regional security architecture should also be developed.

Closing the details of an Israeli-Palestinian deal cannot be left to the parties themselves — the emotional baggage weighs too heavily. When it comes to the minor modifications to the 1967 border and land swaps, special arrangements for Jerusalem’s holy sites and achieving recognition and compensation for Palestinian refugees absent relocation to Israel, there should be American proposals backed by the Quartet and Arab states. For both sides, closure is more easily reached by saying “yes” to a combination of the United States, Arab states and the international community than to each other. These external actors are also better placed to guarantee the implementation and finality of any deal — the end of claims being of particular importance to Israel.

Likewise, post-occupation security in a new state of Palestine should be internationally guaranteed by multinational (perhaps NATO) forces — at least for a period of time. This avoids creating the sort of power vacuum that followed Israel’s clumsy unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and gets beyond unrealistic attempts to incubate fully functional Palestinian security forces under the watch of both the Israeli army and a dispersed and increasingly violent settler population.

This, of course, is an ambitious menu. But it does suggest a direction for an administration committed to peace and to resolving the conflict, unwilling to cede this goal to the skeptics and open to new thinking.

Daniel Levy is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and the Century Foundation. He previously served as an adviser in the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and was the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.

This piece can also be read on the Haaretz website.  

As the defined period for the Gaza cease-fire comes to an end today, preceded by a new cycle of violence, Israelis are being treated to a predictable dose of political posturing and chest-thumping. "We must do something, exact a price," we hear. Yes, the rocket fire needs to stop, but there is no military answer to this predicament.

To recap: For most of the six months of the cease-fire, relative quiet prevailed, and life returned to near-normal for the residents of Sderot and environs (though not for Gazans, who remained under siege). Then on November 4, an Israeli operation sparked a new round of dangerous, if controlled, violence - characterized by occasional Israeli strikes and incursions, matched by Palestinian rockets and shooting across the border.

The cease-fire, while far from ideal, was an improvement over what had preceded it. Of course, Hamas sought to upgrade its military and defensive capacities during this period, as Israel should have been doing on the other side of the border - it would have been absurd to expect otherwise. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail and the cease-fire will be extended - it is in the interests of both sides. The military alternative is not an attractive one - from Israel's side, escalation leading to partial or full reoccupation of Gaza, from Hamas, rockets and perhaps armed attacks from the West Bank in response. It also has no obvious exit strategy.

But the debate in Israel about continuing the cease-fire largely misses the point. Whether or not it's extended, Israel's overall approach toward Gaza is dangerously mistaken. A siege designed to depose Hamas rule (a problematic goal in itself, but that's another story) risks triggering a social collapse that would have devastating consequences for all concerned. Anyone in search of a cautionary tale, and a peek at a possible future scenario for Gaza, should look at Somalia - which has the dubious distinction of having reintroduced piracy to the daily news lexicon, and from which Ethiopian troops are now planning to withdraw following an ugly two-year occupation.

Somalia has gone through 17 years of impoverishment, chaos, destruction and warlords, featuring 13 transitional governments - and is somehow still getting worse. In June 2006, having overrun most of the country, a coalition known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), together with businessmen and clan leaders, ousted the various warlords and the woefully ineffectual Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) from the capital Mogadishu. The following months of ICU rule, despite the often unpopular imposition of strict Islamic law, according to The New York Times, "turned out to be one of the most peaceful periods in modern Somali history."

But that December, the Ethiopian military, with American support and at the invitation of the discredited TFG, invaded Somalia and has been there ever since. Though the initial military victory was a rout, the illegitimacy and brutality of the Ethiopian presence soon led to the inevitable - a bloody insurgency.

The insurgents, now divided and including the ICU and other armed factions, are winning. The Ethiopian military and a small African Union force are readying their withdrawal, and the TFG is bitterly divided. The future looks bleak.

What, if anything, might Israel learn from all this?

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is beginning to approximate that of Somalia, where 77 percent of the population requires emergency humanitarian support, and the rate of malnutrition is the world's highest. Food insecurity in Gaza currently runs at 56 percent and is deteriorating rapidly, 42 percent of the Strip's population is unemployed and 76 percent is receiving humanitarian assistance (all UN figures). Harsh closures have effectively led to Gaza becoming deindustrialized, and Israeli reluctance even to replenish tattered banknotes is demonetizing the economy. There is a slippery slope from an entrenched humanitarian crisis into bloody anarchy and ungovernable chaos - especially when arms are ubiquitous and there is an open wound of unresolved national grievance.

One thing that can prevent a descent into the abyss is the existence of recognized and accepted political leadership. At the very least, Hamas today is an address for possible deals and decision-making, but Israel's assassinations and imprisonment of its leaders take their toll. An Israeli military escalation would likely accelerate the splintering of Hamas' leadership and the emergence of more radical alternatives; that was the effect of Ethiopia's intervention in its backyard. Both Somalia and Palestine are in need of broad and inclusive power-sharing arrangements, brokered internationally and insulated from neighborhood vetoes.

If Israel were again to find itself stuck in Gaza, don't expect international forces to come riding to the rescue. Ethiopia's military hoped to be replaced by an internationally sanctioned African Union force, but the troops couldn't be summoned. Handing over a Gaza that's been re-invaded by Israel to Arab and international forces is equally unrealistic.

Finally, there is the destabilizing regional effect of failed states. In Somalia's case, it was Eritrea and Djibouti that bore the brunt of the impact, in addition to Ethiopia, and of course the infamous piracy in the oil-shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden. Alongside Israel, Egypt is most immediately affected by turmoil in Gaza - with potentially severe consequences for regime stability and legitimacy, and for security in the Sinai and beyond.

Gaza is not yet Somalia. But the warning signs are there. There was nothing inevitable about the disintegration of Somalia. It happened as a result of misguided policies - notably of the current Bush administration and Ethiopia - which should not be repeated by Israel in Gaza.

Israel must do more than extend a cease-fire - Israel must allow Gaza to breathe, to reconnect to the world, to live on more than international handouts, and to reclaim its dignity. Could Hamas benefit in the short term? Perhaps. But worse things can happen - and not just to the Palestinians. For Israel, too, much is at stake. It's no fun to live in a Somalia, and no picnic either being its next-door neighbor.

Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America and Century Foundations, was previously an adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.

 This piece also appears at TPM Cafe

The U.N. Security Council today passed its first resolution on Israeli-Palestinian peace process-related issues in 5 years.  The resolution was essentially intended to anchor the Annapolis process as an ongoing effort in moving forward beyond the Bush Administration and it closely followed the language of a Quartet statement from last month.  UNSCR 1850, however, not only contains little that is new, it also offers very little encouragement that progress is being made by the current approach to Israeli-Palestinian peace-making. 

From the Bush Administration’s perspective it is a last gasp effort at legacy-building, having failed to achieve the goals set out at Annapolis one year ago.  How ironic that this Administration would seek a U.N. imprimatur for that legacy, given its characteristic hostility to the U.N. and indeed to multilateralism and international law in general.  But this is an unhelpful resolution, and it looks like the Bushies are having a farewell snicker at the U.N. Plaza.

From the international community’s perspective, this looks like a farewell gesture to an Administration who for seven years neglected Israeli-Palestinian peace-making and whose belated efforts were never really found to be convincing.  So it can only be hoped that UNSCR 1850 in no way locks the Obama Administration into an Annapolis process that is structurally flawed.  The resolution’s insistence on maintaining bi-lateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, on pursuing the Roadmap and on adhering to the Quartet principles for engagement with Palestinians all seem woefully inadequate when faced with the real challenges that will have to be overcome to advance progress toward Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution. 

Only this month two of the most respected establishment Washington think tanks, the Council on Foreign Relations and Brookings, suggested dropping those Quartet principles: “Washington should eschew the Quartet’s conditions on Hamas.”  The bi-lateral negotiations themselves will almost certainly need to be buttressed by external intervention, as two of the wisest U.S. national security heads, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft have suggested: “A key element in any new initiative would be for the U.S. president to declare publicly what, in the view of this country, the basic parameters of a fair and enduring peace ought to be.”

More than anything, UNSCR 1850 looks like a clumsy attempt to intervene in domestic Israeli and Palestinian politics—and one that is likely to backfire. 

When Israelis go the polls in February, the main choice for Prime Minister will be between the Annapolis-supporting Tzipi Livni (Kadima) and the more hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud).  If this resolution is designed to embarrass Netanyahu and to tie his hands when it discusses the “irreversibility of the bilateral negotiations”, then it is unlikely to succeed.  The Israeli-voting public can be open to listening to messages from the international community, but not when they are delivered with so little sophistication, in a way that lacks meaning, teeth, or follow-up and that actually borders on being nonsensical—what on earth does the “irreversibility of the bi-lateral negotiations” even mean? 

The effort to assist the Palestinian Fatah leadership in Ramallah is even more woeful, transparent, and unconvincing.  The resolution “calls on all states and international organizations…to support the Palestinian government that is committed to the Quartet principles and…to maximize the resources available for the Palestinian Authority.”  Yet one has to question how much of a selling point this resolution can be with the Palestinian public when the entire text makes no mention of occupation, settlements, or the humanitarian situation in Gaza—all things that might just concern the average Palestinian  If anything this is only likely to further discredit the P.A.

A U.N. Security Council Resolution is a tool that if effectively deployed could be helpful in advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace, but Resolution 1850 only cheapens and demeans this tool.  That the resolution has been largely well received is perhaps testimony to only how low the bar has now been placed for what is considered to be a positive development on Israel-Palestine.  International support for such a timid approach, and one so steeped in the failure of the past, is unfortunate to say the least.  It is also very out of sync with the hope and expectation of more effective and creative diplomacy that has characterized the international mood since the election of Barack Obama.

In fact, this is not the only issue on which the Bush Administration is trying to have a last laugh at the United Nations—they are also pushing for a UN Security Council Resolution on the situation in Somalia to militarily protect the discredited and impotent Transitional Federal Government there.  Bush’s Somalia policy has come close to being matched in its wrongheaded ideological dogmatism and devastating effects by the policy towards the Palestinians. 

The only good news is that this resolution was the product of U.S.-Russian co-sponsorship (nice to see) and that like the many Israel-Palestine resolutions that preceded it, this one too is likely to be ignored.    

This piece appears in today's Haaretz.  

No one should be surprised that president-elect Barack Obama's first press conference, three days after his historic November 4th victory, was devoted almost exclusively to the economy. Obama was also quick to remind reporters that there is only one president at a time, and his turn does not begin until January 20. While domestic challenges will dominate his agenda, a not-insignificant list of Middle East crises will confront America's 44th president as well. Here are four of the more urgent issues in which Israel has a keen interest, and which are likely to force themselves onto the Obama team transition agenda and its early days in office.

Why not start with the issue closest to home, with Israel's upcoming February 11 election? Recent American presidents have had a decidedly mixed record of intervention in Israeli elections. President Bill Clinton hastily convened the March 1996 Summit of Peacemakers at Sharm el-Sheikh, but it did not save Shimon Peres in the polls that May. Clinton was more effective in ensnaring a peace-shy prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the Wye River Memorandum - paving the way to Netanyahu's downfall and Ehud Barak's May 1999 election victory. Before that, president George H.W. Bush tripped up Yitzhak Shamir on the issue of settlements, assisting Yitzhak Rabin in Israel's 1992 vote.

A new president, however, is unlikely to dip his hand in the shark-infested waters of Israeli politics, certainly not on Day 1, especially since the possible impact would be hard to predict. The Obama team would be best advised to simply remind Israelis of its own standpoint: a commitment to two states and to advancing the peace process "from the minute I'm sworn into office" (Obama in Amman, July 2008). To forget this pledge until after February 10 would in itself be an intervention of sorts, and an unwelcome one. Will Kadima, Labor or Meretz be able to ride the wave of Obama expectations? That will be for them to attempt and for the voters to decide.

Another upcoming Middle East election the new American president will have to navigate is in Iran, where presidential polls are scheduled for June 2009. The tricky balancing act here will be, on the one hand, not to lose time testing direct engagement with Iran, an Obama election pledge, while, at the same time, doing nothing that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could use to strengthen his own re-election efforts. Paradoxically, a less threatening, more open-for-business tone from the U.S. may be the best way to undermine Ahmadinejad. Direct talks with Ahmadinejad are very unlikely to feature on the immediate Obama to-do list, and would almost certainly be ill advised. In any event, he is not the key address for diplomatic approaches. That would more likely be supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Expect discreet feelers and exploratory contacts with key Khamenei confidants, such as Ali Akbar Velayati and Ali Larijani, and expect not to know that they are taking place.

Israel's best posture on this is surely to avoid any public disagreement with the U.S. on Iran, to ensure that Israel has input into the agenda for talks, and to give American-Iranian negotiations a real chance, as the best option for addressing our concerns.

For Syria, a two-year waiting game ends on Inauguration Day. President Bashar al-Assad apparently decided some time ago that his best bet was to wait out the implacable opposition of French president Jacques Chirac and American president Bush. Syria has recently prepared for this day, for instance by relaunching peace talks with Israel via Turkish mediation, by assuming a constructive role regarding Lebanon, and by moving closer to Europe, most notably to Chirac's successor, Nicolas Sarkozy.

In some senses, Syria is seen as low-hanging fruit for a U.S. re-engagement that would reshuffle Middle East alliances in its favor. After all, Syria is a relevant player when it comes to Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and the Palestinian arena. A reorientation of Syria's policies will not take place overnight or following a brief diplomatic flirtation. But a new approach to U.S.-Syria bilateral relations, with reasonably calibrated benchmarks and including American support for Israeli-Syrian talks, stands a good chance of success. Look out for early indications of that change.

Finally, how to deal with Palestinian internal politics? One of the more devastating legacies of the Bush years was the failure to constructively navigate the Palestinian transition away from the strongman rule of Yasser Arafat and the single-party domination of Fatah. A stable Palestine and sustainable peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis cannot be built on a divided Palestinian house. The American position has been one of encouraging Palestinian division. That needs to change urgently, not by an Obama administration directly engaging Hamas, but by it discreetly signaling an end to the American veto on Palestinian national reconciliation along lines similar to the Saudi-brokered Mecca deal of February 2007. Given the stop-start Palestinian talks now being brokered by Egypt, there might be some urgency to the American policy re-think on this issue - the peace process is deeply flawed in its absence.

Of course, Iraq will loom largest when president-elect Obama turns his attention to the Middle East - and therein lies the core challenge: Will the next administration, unlike its predecessor, appreciate both the extent and the nature of the interconnectivity between the region's varied crises? The signs at least are encouraging.

Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America and Century Foundations, was previously an adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.

 This piece appears at Huffington Post

Details are finally emerging of the American military operation inside Syria in Abu Kamal on Sunday afternoon. While there still has been no official on-record briefing from the Pentagon, unnamed DoD sources have filled in some of the gaps and reports on the operation appear in today's press. The target was apparently "Abu al-Ghadiyah" (Badran al-Mazidi), described alternatively as a high-ranking AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) operative or facilitator of smugglings and infiltration networks from Syria into Iraq, and vice versa. While it appears that there have been instances of cross-border "hot pursuit" by U.S. forces across Syrian borders before, today's Washington Post makes the assertion that this is "the first acknowledged instance of U.S. ground forces operating in Syria." Syrian and Arab T.V. have been full of pictures of the area of the raid and its aftermath, interviews with the civilian wounded in hospitals, and now images of thousands attending the funerals of the 8 civilians who it is claimed also fell victim to this attack (there are claims that American forces nabbed two AQI operatives--these are as yet unconfirmed--there might still be a DoD briefing today).

Condemnations have been prevalent in the Arab media, with the headline of the UAE daily al-Khaleej being typical: "U.S. Aggression Against Syria". And criticism has not only come from the obvious places--Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world--but also from Russia, Europe and beyond. There have also been some interesting exceptions to this trend within the Arab world--notably Saudi Arabia, leading some to speculate that the Saudis encouraged or were even complicit in this operation. But even as the details are emerging many are still baffled as to why this raid took place, and especially why now. As ever when it comes to the Middle East, and especially where Syria is concerned, tantalizing and mischievous theories proliferate. Here is an attempt, then, to make sense of why this happened, and what the implications might be.

The most obvious explanation, the one seemingly offered by the Pentagon, and the least complicated, is of this being a target of opportunity that was simply too good to resist. Juan Cole is as usual the best source for the low-down on the apparent target, Badran al-Mazidi. Here's what Cole says on his blog:

"Abu al-Ghadiyah" (Badran al-Mazidi) of Mosul, a member of the fundamentalist vigilante group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (originally called "Monotheism and Holy War" but more recently "The Islamic State of Iraq"). Al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006. US intelligence fingered al-Mazidi as a major facilitator for networks of fundamentalist vigilantes who were infiltrating into Iraq from Syria. The administration allegation is that it struck when it did because it got especially good information on al-Mazidi's exact whereabouts.

But Cole then goes on to assert that as with so many decapitation exercises that we are familiar with--whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Palestine, "Washington also tends to over-estimate the importance of individual leaders such as...al-Mazidi. Mostly they are fairly easily replaced." But even if al-Mazidi was a particularly cherished prize, it is hard to believe that this is the first time that America has had actionable intelligence regarding such a target's whereabouts inside Syria (after all, the Americans themselves have recognized that compared to the previous years of the Iraq War, there are less border infiltrations from Syria today--so there must have been more such targets in the past). Yet in the past, for the first five and a half years of the Iraq War, America did not carry out such missions inside of Syria. So it really begs the question of why now. In the less than 48 hours since the raid, there has been no shortage of attempts to answer that question, although none seem particularly authoritative.

The favorite for conspiracy theorists is to see this as the mini-version of the long awaited "October Surprise". The raid was designed at a minimum to push the American election agenda back to national security issues, thereby supposedly favoring McCain, or even better, it triggers a wider military escalation and a week of McCain looking commander-in-chief-like, towering over the inexperienced punk Obama (Ilan Goldenberg makes a great argument on Obama-McCain and who is more responsible on this Syria attack issue). I don't buy that for one moment. This is not a situation that looks likely to escalate, Obama justifiably has closed the gap on national security, and those characterizations never really gained traction and rightly so.

Human error is always a possibility, but that seems equally unlikely. As is the notion of this being a rogue operation that was not cleared at the highest decision-making levels (even if "going rogue" is the vogue phrase of this week).

It is hard not to see this as a huge going away present for the neoconservatives in the Bush Administration. They have had Syria in their crosshairs since day 1, or long before actually. Syria, for the neocons, was due to be next in line after the Iraq "cakewalk", and they have grown increasingly frustrated as the clock runs out on Bush-driven regime change in Damascus. Ian Black, writing in the Guardian, called it a "final vengeful lunge against a country that others are now wooing but which still attracts profound hostility in Washington." And today's Washington Post editorial page, so often a neocon echo chamber when it comes to the Middle East, appears to bemoan that this kind of attack on Syria did not happen sooner. Assuming that Syria would not respond given the Assad regime's expectations of better relations with the next U.S. Administration, this was something of a freebie whack at the Syrians--something that Josh Landis mentions on his informative blog, 'Syria Comment'.

This all has a nice internal logic to it and no doubt the neocons are clucking and delighted to have established this new precedent, and yet it suggests a last gasp reclaiming of neocon ownership on the Syria file for which there is little evidence. American policy has been drifting away from confrontation with Damascus, not towards it. Secretary Rice recently met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, which all suggests that there is probably more to this than a 9th inning neocon walk-off homerun.

Then there is the diametrically opposite explanation (there always is with Syria): namely, that the entire thing was preplanned and coordinated between America and Syria as part of an ongoing effort and shared interest to undermine al-Qaeda, and that was actually a prelude to warmer bilateral relations.

It is certainly the case that Syria has been plagued recently by the actions of Salafist Jihadi groups, some emanating from Lebanon, and some from Iraq. There is also evidence that Syria and the U.S. have cooperated in the past in pushing back al-Qaeda activities. Juan Cole speculated on this yesterday, and Israeli intelligence analyst at the leading Israeli daily, Yediot Aharonot, Ronen Bergman, takes the claim several steps further today, and states, sourcing two unnamed American officials, that "the American commando attack in Syrian territory on the Iraqi border was coordinated in advance with Syrian military intelligence (translated from the Hebrew-DL)." Bergman sites as evidence that no anti-aircraft guns were used on the American helicopters, nor did local Syrian military units engage, although this occurred in broad daylight and in a police state where the presence of security service personnel is ubiquitous. Bergman is a respected commentator in Israel. He also of course is reliant on sources that may be using him as a mouthpiece for their own psyche-ops and propaganda. In this scenario, the shrill response of Syrian officials to the raid, which Baath party number two Mohammed Saeed Bkheitan called an "act of piracy" and "state terrorism", becomes part of the game.

Some Syria analysts do see a struggle going on in Damascus right now within the Assad regime, in broad terms between a modernizing, open up to the West approach of Bashar Assad, and a 'hunker down, stick with our trusted allies, don't rock the boat' demand led by some in the military and intelligence community. The recent suicide bombing in Damascus which killed 17 is sometimes explained in this context. So might this be part of the reality of a split and shaky regime? Could Assad be using an American raid to send a signal to some of his own military? While nothing can be ruled out, this sounds to me like a serious stretch.

Perhaps the reality lies somewhere in between the two more extreme explanations of collision or collusion. Here are some things we do know. The Pentagon sees Syrian efforts to seal the border with Iraq as having been a mixed bag, and they would certainly want further improvements. General Petraeus has acknowledged these improvements and carries with him a PowerPoint presentation that includes a box entitled "Improved Relations and Coordination with Syria". The Pentagon would also have noted that shortly after an Israeli air raid against a suspected nascent Syrian nuclear program, the Israelis and Syrians were actually conducting peace talks via Turkish mediation (the Israeli press has made much of this analogy--the storm before the calm). So this might be a calculated American move that sends a message to Syria that "we are not bullshitting, we are ready to use force, but we would much prefer that you respond to our diplomatic asks and overtures."

And perhaps Syria was not the main intended recipient of the message sent by this operation at all. A number of other possible addresses come to mind. Most obviously there is Iran. If the U.S. can conduct cross border raids in Pakistan and in Syria with impunity, then surely Iran is not off the agenda, as Kaveh Afrasiabi discusses in this Asia Times online piece, 'U.S. Raid in Syria Spooks Iran'. Then there is Russia, which has been increasing its Syrian cooperation lately, is upping its sales of arms to Damascus and which hosted President Assad in Moscow just days after the Georgia crisis. This might in part be a shot across the Russian bow. Given the timing of the attack--it coincides with Syrian FM Moallem's high profile visit to London--one cannot exclude that America was sending a message of displeasure to the Europeans regarding their increasing openness to the Assad regime (although it seems to me that in this instance, the timing was coincidental and more a case of "who cares if we insult and embarrass our closest European allies").

So how do we pull this all together, and what are the implications? In U.S. terms, there may well have been a convergence of interests at work--a kind of internal U.S. win-win. The Administration hawks would always be happy to poke Assad in the eye, while the pro-engagement folks may have been convinced that this would do no harm and might even elicit a more positive Syrian response, with the Pentagon eager to further extend the principle of the violability of sovereign borders when it comes to pursuing those that harm Americans and hoping that Syria might be nudged toward greater cooperation. To take this last point a step further, a more general effort seems to be afoot, now extended from the Afghan-Pakistan border region to the Iraq-Syria border with regard to U.S. military freedom of action in cross border missions, with today's New York Times quoting several "senior administration officials" expressing hope that this rationale "would be embraced by the next President as well." That begins to sound like a problematic attempt to box-in a new Administration. Even if such an internal win-win might exist, it is far from certain that a similar calculation applies to the external consequences of this action.

Most immediate may be the effect on American efforts to negotiate the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) with Iraq, which already faces significant obstacles. One issue of contention has been the guarantee that American troops would not use Iraq as the staging point for attacks on neighbors. Iran, for one, is likely to push its Iraqi allies even further on this point after the Syria action. Kaveh Afrasiabi argues that "unintended consequences of the US's raid into Syria may turn out to be more ammunition not only in the hands of Iranians but also the forces of Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr and others who have categorically opposed the security agreement as anti-Iraqi." Afrasiabi even suggests that the Pentagon may be intentionally sabotaging the SOFA, the terms of which are increasingly disliked.

Beyond the SOFA, the cooperation that America will need from Iraq's neighbors as it withdraws is unlikely to be well served by this latest development. Syria has made several constructive gestures over the last period, helping to broker a standoff to the Lebanese political crisis and finally establishing diplomatic relations with that country, resuming peace talks with Israel, opening an embassy in Baghdad, and drawing closer to Europe. Unless the attack was an elaborate U.S-Syrian collaboration, it endangers setting back this more constructive Syrian role, and the decision by Syria today to close an American school and cultural center in Damascus is hardly a good sign. In particular, the Israeli-Syrian peace talks are in need of American support to be both sustainable and make progress.

Another by-product would be to again fuel anger in the Arab world at a seeming indifference to the cost in civilian casualties of American military actions and disrespect for the sovereignty of Arab and Muslim countries. In that sense, Syria joins a long list, including not only Afghanistan and Iraq, but also of course Pakistan and even Somalia, Yemen, and other locales. And this is likely to just further fuel anti-Americanism. As if all that wasn't bad enough, it really is a head-scratcher that this is happening while the Syrian Foreign Minister is visiting London. A joint press conference with British FM David Miliband had to be called off to avoid embarrassing questions. French President Sarkozy, who has invested much in getting Syria to be more constructive via diplomatic engagement, must also feel slighted (he was quick to condemn the attack).

I doubt that this was an intentional snub to the Brits or Europeans, rather another example of the kind of indifference and condescension towards allies and their needs that has characterized the Bush Administration. As today's Guardian editorial suggested, the attack was another sign of a U.S. Administration which "shoots first and thinks later."

This piece also appears on Huffington Post.   

Yesterday, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the bombing of U.S. and French peacekeeping force barracks in Beirut – an assault which remains one of the most deadly and ugly attacks of its kind – the New York Times chose to run two opinion pieces on the subject, both offering the same lesson to be learned – and both wrong.   

The articles – one written by Robert McFarlane, President Reagan’s national security advisor at the time of the attacks, the other by Randy Gaddo, former Marine staff sergeant and a photographer – both slavishly follow the failed global war on terror American narrative toward the Middle East, and radical Islam.

 
Both connect America’s immediate withdrawal of forces from Lebanon following the ’83 attack with the events of September 11^th. Both suggest the experience in Lebanon ought to lead America to “stay the course” in Iraq.  McFarlane suggests GWOT started 18 years too late in September 2001, that the Americans should have gone on the military offensive then in Lebanon and are being “vindicated” now in Iraq “to establish an example of pluralism in a Muslim state.” Oh dear.   

The Shi’a adversary that killed nearly 300 troops in Beirut in 1983 was not, of course, the same foe that struck the USS Cole, American embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and the World Trade Center in ’93 and ‘01. That enemy was Al Qaeda, a takfiri salafist Sunni ideology that deems the Shi’a faith heretical.  

Remaining in Lebanon and expanding operations there in the 1980s would have entailed literally standing in the middle of a civil war. During this period, Lebanon was effectively occupied by two foreign forces, both the Israelis and the Syrians. Further, Palestinian militants, having already been expelled from Jordan, presented a major destabilizing force, between attacks on Israel and inter-faction feuding. It’s difficult to fathom what maintaining a U.S. troop presence would have achieved, or what lesson various terrorist factions might have learned from further massacres of U.S. servicemen. 

Lebanon itself only emerged from the Israeli occupation of its south in May 2000 and from the pervasive Syrian military presence in April 2005.  Just this month Syria and Lebanon finally established formal diplomatic relations.  All this ought to tell us something about the corrosive effects of foreign occupations (American-led ones included), about the hard diplomatic slog of stability-building and the need to follow the difficult path of inclusivity and decisiveness in political conflict resolution. 

First, the travails of occupation.  It is worth recalling that it was the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in 1978 and then more dramatically in 1982 that facilitated and fueled the rise of the Shi’a Hezbollah; just as it was the U.S. invasion of Iraq which brought the virulent Al Qaeda from Afghanistan and elsewhere to Iraq.

Foreign occupations tend to stir resistance, violent resistance, among occupied populations – and can become self-perpetuating for the occupier.  It is much easier to get in than to get out (and becomes increasingly so over time, especially if a civilian settler population from the occupying country is added to the mix – just ask the Israelis and Palestinians).  Over time the political mutations that occupation breeds can become more entrenched and more deadly.  For the New York Times to publish two op-eds on the same day both favoring more and longer US occupations of Arab countries is particularly appalling. 

The hard political work of conflict resolution and stability-building in the Middle East is not primarily a military mission.  It requires commitment, a willingness to be assertive diplomatically and a stomach for engaging (directly or indirectly) with thoroughly unpleasant parties, often bloody adversaries – but with whom one can find just enough common ground to cut acceptable deals (remember who the Sunni “Awakening Councils” were before they got that nice laundered name).  

To borrow a phrase from a different policy arena – this work requires a scalpel not an axe, it’s a fragile region and a fragile political reality – lumping AQ, Iran, Syria, Hamas, Taliban, etc. together and then vowing to destroy them all is not a smart plan. 

And what might all this tell us about the Presidential candidates?  Senator Obama favors diplomatically engaging more broadly to build stability.  He, for instance, favors talking to the Syrians and Iranians.  On Iraq he also displays understanding that an occupation can be a key part of the problem – he promotes US troop withdrawal as a way of incentivizing a more effective political reconciliation process.  And he appreciates how central the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to the narrative of radicalization in the region, and the need to resolve that conflict, urgently, and not least for Israel’s sake. 

Obama has not though extended this problem-solving realism to the question of how to deal with non-al Qaeda, non-state actors – whether that be, for instance, in response to senior NATO officers calling to bring Taliban elements into the Afghan political tent or to Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza. 

Intriguingly, Senator McCain, in his previous incarnation was one of just 27 Republican representatives (McCain was a newly elected Congressman at the time) to oppose extending the Marine deployment in Beirut, prior to October ’83 barracks attack.  It is something McCain has mentioned on the campaign trail—but it also represents a McCain that barely exists today – so lost he is in the all-embracing neocon bear-hug.  McCain is largely opposed to diplomatic engagement with both the state and non-state actors in the Middle East with whom the US finds itself in conflict.  Military threats and bellicose rhetoric have become the standard operating procedure for candidate McCain and his GWOT-narrative.    

It’s a shame that Senator McCain was not challenged on this 25 years after that terrible bombing – it is even more of a shame that 25 years later most of the wrong lessons are still being learned.

This piece also appears on TPMCafe

One of the lesser noticed shifts that has taken place during this Presidential election campaign is that everyone now favors some kind of diplomatic engagement with Iran:  Obama, of course;  President Bush since earlier this summer, when Undersecretary of State Burns joined the Geneva P5+1 talks; and as of late, John McCain.  The big challenge now becomes what type of engagement, and Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann have just released the most powerful case made so far for America to go for a ‘grand bargain’ with Iran and what the agenda for such an effort might look like.

Flynt (who is a colleague of mine at NAF) and Hillary presented their plan today at a New America event—as part of the NAF ‘Big Ideas’ series.  The entire paper can be read here, their talk from today can be viewed here, and an abbreviated version of their plan also appears in this month’s Washington Monthly.

Before looking at the plan, it is just worth mentioning what is up with the McCain position on Iran.  Initially, McCain tried to tag the Obama tough diplomacy line as appeasement.  Then a few things happened:  President Bush and Secretary Rice sent America’s number three diplomat William Burns to Geneva; the Pentagon leadership made it clear that they looked distinctly unfavorably on the bomb, bomb, bomb Iran approach; and then one afternoon five former Secretaries of State all came out in support of engagement.  So Senator McCain flip-flopped and changed his tune (while of course claiming consistency).  Here is what McCain said in the first debate: “He [Kissing